Effectiveness of online learning relies on the dynamic between teachers and students

Abstract

Since the outbreak of covid-19 pandemic, schools around the world are forced to switch from traditional face-to-face schooling to online learning. School teachers face immense stress during the process due to lack of online teaching experience and relevant training. Different research has been conducted in reviewing the effectiveness of online learning; factors such as self-efficacy and motivation of students are the two most referenced amongst research. This research argues that the delivery of knowledge online is dynamic and it relies on the efforts of both students and teachers. By integrating the typology of interactions  developed by  Graham (2016) and Tang (2021), this research proposes the ‘teacher-content-students dynamic’ as a tool to comprehend how teachers and students interact in an online learning environment. Using narrative analysis, the online teaching experiences during the pandemic of three secondary school teachers are reviewed. The aim of this research is to identify how the interactions between students and teachers in the virtual classroom play an important role in effective online teaching and learning. Since there lacks unified guidance regarding the implementation of online teaching, the delivery of online teaching is different in the schools where the three informants teach. Owing to this, the difficulties and challenges faced by each individual are unique, yet their narratives have coincidentally pointed to how teacher-student relationships and interactions play an extra important role in online teaching. Symbolic interactionism is used in the analysis.